


The Politics of Passing Out

by FernDavant



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sharing a Bed, discovering feelings, idiots being idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:12:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10134824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FernDavant/pseuds/FernDavant
Summary: The Doctor and Clara share a bed. The results are predictable but endearing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was going through my fanfic folder, and I realized I had ~10 fics from as long ago as February of last year that are really near complete, but that I’ve just not finished. Why? Who knows. So I’m polishing up a bunch of ‘em, and kicking ‘em out there. Fly free, little fics. Fly free. This is just your run-of-the-mill bed sharing fic, because I wanted to write tropey shit some time last year.

“I don’t sleep,” the Doctor said, eyes and head drooping until he shook himself mightily, “so the bedding arrangements are no problem at all.”

“You’re exhausted,” Clara huffed, as the Doctor once more did his best impersonation of one of those YouTube videos of tired baby animals. ‘Exhausted Owl Angry at Very Concept of Sleep.’ That’d hit 1 million views, easy.

“Time Lords need much less, much less—“ the Doctor interrupted himself with a massive yawn that apparently required every muscle in his body, “much less sleep than you mere humans.”

“Yes,” Clara said, her tone more patient than she felt, “but you still need sleep. We’ve been stuck on this planet for a month, trying to solve this interplanetary embezzlement whatever, and you haven’t slept the whole time as far as I have seen.”

“Nope, I haven’t,” the Doctor said proudly. He promptly closed his eyes for five seconds, lost control of his body, and slammed into the wall. He carried on, seemingly unperturbed. “Because I don’t need to.”

Clara crossed her arms, shook off a yawn of her own, and said in her sternest tone, “Get in the bed.”

“There’s only one,” the Doctor pointed out, holding up a finger in case Clara didn’t realize how many ‘one’ was. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I had noticed,” Clara nodded. The Doctor seemed much more awake now, as he was nimbly walking backwards, away from her, as she advanced towards him.

“And it’s not a large bed,” the Doctor said, bumping into the side table of the bed, nearly knocking the lamp over. “And I know how you humans need—gah!”

The Doctor had tried to edge away from the bed and side table, but Clara had rather forcibly shoved him onto the bed, and now was holding his right leg with a surprisingly strong grip as she began untying one of his shoes.

“What are you _doing_?” the Doctor squawked.

“You’re sleeping in this bloody bed, no matter what you say. But you’re not sleeping in this bed with your shoes on. Stop squirming.”

“But what about you?” the Doctor asked. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“In the bed,” Clara huffed, throwing his right boot into the corner of the room with a rather loud noise. Underneath, the Doctor had socks on which featured technicolor tigers. Clara raised an eyebrow at this particular sartorial choice.

“Look,” the Doctor grinned eagerly, wiggling his toes so the tigers undulated as he did a passable imitation of a big cat’s roar. “It’s like they’re alive.”

Clara stared at him blankly, then moved on to the left shoe. “So, because I’m fairly sure you’ve forgotten, we are two adults. Two adult friends. In a friendly relationship. Who are mature and friendly friends, capable of sharing a bed. Like mature, capable—oh Christ, is that Grumpy Cat? Your socks are themed. You didn’t bother to match them, but you made them _themed_. That’s infuriating. Why is that so infuriating? I’m very tired…” Clara’s voice trailed off, before she let out a yawn. She felt near hysterics.

“Sorry?” the Doctor offered tentatively. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but he reckoned it was best to cover his bases.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Clara said with a sigh, standing up and tugging at his jacket. “Off. Wool’s itchy. Not letting you wear it to bed.”

The Doctor grumbled a feeble protest, but let her slip his jacket off, fold it neatly, and leave it on the small desk the room offered. Clara did the same with her jacket, slipped off her shoes, yawned and stretched, and then shot the Doctor a warning look. The Doctor swung his legs onto the bed, making a petulant face at her; like, of _course_ , he was doing what she was telling him. Didn’t she trust him? Gosh.

“Not going to get under the sheets?” Clara asked, walking over to the bed.

“No,” the Doctor said, looking at her like this was a trick question. “Why?”

“Well, you’re always kitted out in a good five or six layers, so I figured you’d want a good seventh or eighth.”

“Clara, I’m a Time Lord—“ the Doctor began. Clara, who had had quite enough of all that rubbish, grabbed a spare pillow and threw it in his face. The Doctor pulled the pillow off, gave her a look, but got the hint.

“Well, I’m getting under the covers,” Clara grumbled, trying to slide into them, but finding that the Doctor took up a significant amount of space. He was right; the bed _was_ tiny. “Budge up.”

“How?” the Doctor asked.

“Well, I would think a Time Lord would know all about how muscles and tendons and neural signals work, but basically, if you think really hard about moving, your body—“

“I know how to move!” the Doctor shot back crossly. “I just mean, move where?”

“Well, stop spreading out like a starfish for one. It’s a tight fit. Move onto your side. We’re going to have to cozy up.”

“Cozy up?” the Doctor choked. He made it sound like she’d just asked him to sacrifice his gran to a Cthuloid evil.

“Yes,” Clara said with a blush. Why was she blushing? She didn’t need to be blush. “We’re all friends here. The two of us. Friends.”

“Friends,” the Doctor echoed faintly. Was _he_ blushing? Why was he blushing? How could he even blush? He was so pale, he was practically blue. Didn’t make sense.

What followed was a lot of commotion, accidentally thrown elbows, squirming, grunting, whinging, shifting, and a general sense of consternation and discomfort.

By the time both of them had found a somewhat comfortable position, they were both a bit out of breath, and Clara was absolutely roasting under the blankets after all the exertion. It wasn’t an option to kick the blankets off, however, as that would likely involve accidentally knee-capping the Doctor, and his shins were already bruised.

“Alright,” Clara said. “Settled? Comfortable?”

The Doctor and her were laying back to back. She could feel his chest rumble with his response. “As comfortable as I’m going to get.”

“Right,” Clara agreed. “Good job. Go us. Just two comfortable friends. In bed together. About to sleep.”

“Friends,” the Doctor said, and then a few more times for good measure. “Friends, friends, friends.”

“Are you going to do that all night?” Clara groaned, half-turning her head to look at him, and getting a mouthful of fluffy curls.

“No! Sorry. No,” the Doctor said. “Goodnight, Clara.”

“Goodnight, Doctor.”

They both dropped off with surprising ease after that.

 **

The Doctor woke up, momentarily confused, and a little bit scared, although he’d never admit it. He had been asleep. And it wasn’t in the TARDIS. The Doctor suppressed a shudder. He hated sleeping in the not-TARDIS.

He also appeared to be hugging very tightly onto a small vacuum cleaner.

A surprisingly hot vacuum cleaner, actually. 37.0 Celsius if he wasn’t mistaken (he wasn’t). Same temperature as a human, coincidentally. An absurd temperature, really. He himself usually stayed at around 32.0 Celsius, and—

Oh. It was actually a human.

_Oh._

It was Clara.

He was hugging very tightly onto Clara. And she was snoring surprisingly loudly.

Seriously, how was she snoring so loudly? She was tiny! She shouldn’t be capable of it.

Although, on second thought, she could shout very loudly when she was cross. Perhaps she was bigger on the inside. Maybe she would let him scan her lungs later, see if there was a trick to them. Probably not, but worth a try.

The Doctor poked about internally to find his perpetual sense of time, which told him they’d been asleep about four hours. He could use more sleep, although it wasn’t strictly necessary. But Clara needed at least eight hours—he’d read that in a book once.

This presented a bit of a problem. He couldn’t sneak out of the bed without waking Clara. They appeared to have become quite, well, intertwined. But he also wasn’t sure he could get back to sleep with Clara snoring like that. Did she have a deviated septum or something? He’d have to look into that the next time they were in the TARDIS medbay.

He then became acutely aware of his exact position vis a vis Clara Oswald. Something terrible had happened to the covers in the last four hours. They were impossibly tangled, with Clara half out of them, and he half in them. Clara had ended up flat on her back, and the Doctor had somehow ended up with one arm pinned under her shoulders, and the other arm draped across her stomach, both pulling her tightly towards him. His head had been laying on her chest, and he’d drooled a bit on her. Embarrassed, the Doctor wiped at the spot of drool with the sleeve of his hoodie. Thankfully, Clara didn’t wake up; she just made a little humming noise and snuggled more closely towards him.

And then she started snoring again.

The Doctor was torn between deep embarrassment and annoyance. He had a feeling that if he could get Clara onto her side, she’d stop the snoring. But getting Clara onto her side would likely entail a good deal more snuggling—perhaps even clutching her tightly to his chest. It was bad enough that he could already tell how good her hair smelled, and see how lovely her profile was. To snuggle her even more tightly to himself would be absolute misery.

This was _terrible._

The Doctor whimpered self-pityingly. Clara must have heard him on some level, as she rolled over towards him. They were almost nose-to-nose now, and the Doctor could feel the little puffs of her breath on his face.

The good news was that she had indeed stopped snoring.

The bad news was that the Doctor was going to die. Stupid humans. He had known something like this was going to happen. He’d tried to warn her this might end in his death, in the most, vague, confusing way possible, but she hadn’t listened to him, had she?

The Doctor was positively apoplectic. Stupid, pretty Clara. Making him feel things, with her lips and her big eyes. All warm and nice in his arms.

They were friends though. Friendly, friendly friends.

The Doctor gently shifted the arm under Clara until he had his hand behind her head. He pulled her closer to his chest, so her stupid human breath wouldn’t puff adorably against his face, and so he wouldn’t have to see _her_ stupid human face, all slack and impossibly beautiful as she slept. In her sleep, Clara grabbed onto his hoodie and burrowed herself more tightly against his chest.

The Doctor let out a big breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He felt nice. He could get used to this warm human thing, now that the snoring had stopped. He really had to stop thinking, though. Especially about that. Valiantly, he shut off his brain, and went back to sleep, setting a mental alarm clock for when Clara would have had a whole _nine_ hours of sleep, because he was generous like that.

**

Clara woke up, slowly, gradually, with a warm and fuzzy sense of well-being infusing her. And then she realized part of her well-being came from being so close to the Doctor.

Her eyes shot open. _Shit_. Alright. Assess the situation. _He_ was hugging _her_ , so she had plausible deniability there, as long as she let go of her vice-like grip on his hoodie, and stopped _nuzzling_ into his neck.

Really, all she needed to do was gently extricate herself from him, and then wait until he woke up. The gentle extrication part was proving exceedingly difficult, though, as the Doctor seemed to cling more tightly to her, the harder she tried to move away from him. It didn’t help that other than embarrassment, she really couldn’t find a compelling argument against being this close to him. He had a clean smell to him, and he was surprisingly comfortable to lay against, despite his deceptively skinny appearance.

On the other hand, they had been very clear earlier in the night that they were decidedly friends.

Clara decided the best course of action would be to just stay in his arms, but not get comfortable. And then, when he awoke, she would gently but firmly lie to him that he should stop holding onto her like she was a lifesaver.

Congratulating herself on her sensible plan, she moved just a few inches away from him, and chanced a look at the Doctor.

Everything would have turned out okay, likely, if her hand hadn’t decided, independently, to venture into the Doctor’s curls. They looked so soft, and Clara knew she’d never get a chance to do this while he was awake. She got a few good minutes of hair ruffling before the Doctor’s eyes popped open. She could practically hear the ‘pop’ as they snapped open, like there’d been an on/off switch on his sleeping process, and someone had powered him back up.

“Hey,” Clara said, trying to pretend that she didn’t have a hand in his hair.

“Hello,” the Doctor said, trying to pretend that he wasn’t cuddling her like a Teddy Bear.

“Do you wanna just pretend like this never happened?” Clara asked.

“Yes. Probably for the best, yeah?”

“Definitely.”

“Mature decision,” the Doctor nodded.

“Without a doubt,” Clara agreed.

“Great.”

“Super.”

“Excellent.”

And then they were kissing.

4-star rating. Excellent accommodations.

 


End file.
